


"can i hold your hand?"

by clickingkeyboards



Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [19]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Attempted Murder, Best Friends, Canon Era, Strangulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 12:17:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21494173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: When Hazel draws attention to where her and Daisy are hiding to watch the interrogation, the policemen aren't able to apprehend Miss Griffin fast enough.Canon Era (AU ending of Murder Most Unladylike)Written for the nineteenth prompt in the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr.
Relationships: Daisy Wells & Hazel Wong
Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533164
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	"can i hold your hand?"

Daisy and I had been forced into the smaller of the two music rooms. It is quite separate from the big music room but the two rooms are connected by a door, covered with a heavy velvet curtain on the big music room side. Between the door and the curtain, there’s a narrow little space, just enough for two girl detectives to squeeze into. 

I do wonder whether the Inspector had planned on us listening in. It may have just been a nice coincidence - he never said anything about it to us afterwards - but all the same, Daisy and I opened the connecting door, and slipped in behind the curtain. So we heard exactly what went on at Inspector Priestley’s meeting.

Daisy and I positioned ourselves at each end of the curtain, but I could not stand being alone and not at her side when Miss Griffin was right there. A woman capable of murder wtice could surely commit it thrice without a flinch. What if she found out we were there? That it was us who solved the murder? Why, surely she should kill us too, as brutally as she did the others.

I moved over to beside Daisy, squashing myself next to her.

“Watson!” she murmured under her breath. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t want to be alone,” I replied, just as quiet.

She linked our arms together and said, “Chump.”

“Can I hold your hand?”

Seeing how afraid I was, she sighed, “Go on then,” and I grasped it with all my might.

* * *

The meeting passed in a flurry of gasps, confessions and realisations and… and then _ I _ gasped.

“Chump!” Daisy snapped.

And on the other side of the curtain, there was noise. A scuffle, some movement… and then Miss Griffin herself had pushed aside the curtain and - the light from behind making her look ironically angelic - bent down to hiss at us.

“_ Wells _ ,” she hissed, and her voice did not sound human, but rather the voice of some sort of demon from the depths of hell, “ _ Wong _.”

With that, she seized Daisy by the throat, ripped her hand out of mine, and, lifting her by the neck to her feet, began to squeeze.

Daisy shrieked and kicked, acting terribly unladylike. I stood, frozen in fear, as my best friend had the life squeezed out of her by a murderer.

What a Hazel-ish thing to do.

Then I came to my senses.

If Daisy was hurt, I would never forgive myself.

If Daisy was to die, I should have myself die by her side.

Daisy Wells may be an awful beast sometimes, nasty and dismissive and biased, but she is simply _ Daisy _ . She is my best friend in the entire world, she _ chose _me, and I am now her Vice-President and my life could not be better. I love Daisy Wells more than I have ever loved anything in my life; she is my very best friend.

_ I cannot let her get hurt, _I realised.

“GET OFF OF HER AT ONCE!” I screamed in a very loud voice that I did not know I could do until then. After that, just like I had done with Lavinia on the hockey pitch, I hurled myself at Miss Griffin. I am shorter than Daisy, but stouter and heavier, which I have always looked upon with disgust. In that moment, though, it was an utter blessing. Though my weight could not topple Miss Griffin, it made her stumble back with a shocked exclamation and what may have been a growl.

Daisy fell to the ground, face bluish with a red ring around her neck from Miss Griffin’s hands. She was gasping and wheezing but very much, and oh-so-annoyingly, alive and still _ pretty _.

“_ HAZEL WONG!” _Miss Griffin roared and reached for Daisy again.

I threw myself to the ground and curled myself around the half-conscious Daisy. “No!” I shouted right back. “You shan't hurt her! I will not allow it!”

“You are under arrest for the assault of a child, and for the murders of Miss Bell and Miss Tennyson,” said the Inspector from where he loomed behind her.

Miss Griffin bellowed at us as she was led away, and I held my breath and silently prayed that I should never see her face again.

Still gasping, Daisy’s eyes fluttered open and focused on me properly. “Hazel…” she said, trying out the word in her mouth as if it was unfamiliar. Then her face lit up with comprehension and she shrieked, “HAZEL! I SAY, HAZEL WONG!” she hurled herself at me.

“Daisy!” I said, wrapping my arms around her tightly. “Daisy!”

It seemed to be the only word I knew how to say.

Daisy pulled away from the hug just slightly to look me in the eye. She was pale and flushed with an awful mark around her neck, but all the same, she _ sparkled _.

“You are my _ hero _, Hazel Wong,” she said sincerely. “I am not quite sure I deserve you. And you will never hear me say that again so I suppose you will just have to remember that.”

I am not likely to forget. 

* * *

**An addition from late May 1936: **I am writing here with the sole aim of proving October-November Daisy of 1934 incorrect. Daisy has said that to me again, but I shall not say the circumstances. For reference, it is on page 177 of my lilac casebook.

-Hazel Wong, writing because she is impossibly bored after being rather unfairly grounded for trying to save the world (again).


End file.
